Developers seeking zoning changes would have to disclose their Live Local filings under proposed rule

When a property owner asks Miami Beach commissioners to change the zoning rules, the city would have to tell them whether that owner is also behind a project using state law to build beyond the city’s limits without a public hearing, under an amendment going to a City Commission committee Tuesday.

The proposal, sponsored by Commissioner Alex Fernandez and co-sponsored by Commissioner Tanya K. Bhatt, deals with projects filed under two state laws, the Live Local Act and the Resiliency and Safe Structures Act. A planning staff memo says state law requires those applications to be reviewed by staff alone, with no hearing before the commission or a land use board, even when they exceed the uses or intensity allowed by the city’s comprehensive plan.

Under the draft language in the memo, the staff memo that goes with any ordinance amending the comprehensive plan or the land development regulations would say, as far as can be determined, whether a private applicant, or anyone the change is meant to benefit, is affiliated with such a state-law application. The statement would come before the ordinance’s first reading and could be updated before the second.

The memo says the point is to catch connections hidden behind different company names. Because owners can use several corporations or LLCs, applications filed under different names can share owners, managers, officers or agents, and a disclosure would give commissioners “the broader context” of a request, it says.

The draft adds that leaving out the statement would not by itself invalidate an ordinance.

Planning staff recommend that the Land Use and Sustainability Committee endorse the change and ask the full commission to send an ordinance to the Planning Board. The committee meets Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 3 p.m. in the City Hall Commission Chamber, 1700 Convention Center Drive, and on Zoom.